


Respect - the Scooby Gang vs. the Troika (Buffy the Vampire Slayer S6)

by shadowkat67



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Essays, Gen, Meta, Other, The Lord of the Rings References, non-fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-03-21
Updated: 2002-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:29:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22354129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowkat67/pseuds/shadowkat67
Summary: An examination of the theme of Respect as shown through S6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- focusing on Buffy and her friends, and their antagonists, Warren et company. It also references Lord of the Rings and other literary works.
Kudos: 2





	Respect - the Scooby Gang vs. the Troika (Buffy the Vampire Slayer S6)

_"R-E-S-P-E-C-T, you know what it means to me, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha…give me a little RESPECT!"_ \- Aretha Franklin

I think that's it, lyrics were never my strong point. But boy does Aretha Franklin drive it home. I would love nothing better than to throw the characters of Btvs in a locked room with it blasting in their ears.

Respect…do we respect our world? Each other? Others opinions? Others views when they do not agree or even conflict with our own? Do we respect nature? Do we even respect ourselves? Failure to respect these things can destroy us. The religion of Wicca is heavily founded upon RESPECT. Respect of the laws of nature, respect of the earth, and respect of our bodies. In Wicca - you have to respect one another enough to do sky-clad (nude) rituals. You are also expected to respect the forces of nature or they will destroy you.

In the movie _The Fellowship of the Ring_ , based on J.R. Tolkien's classic work of the same name, the main character, Frodo Baggins, is asked to go on a perilous journey in order to destroy an evil ring. The ring is placed in Frodo's safekeeping because of all the characters in the novel Frodo can resist the temptation of using the ring to accomplish his own ends. He respects the terrible of power of the ring and he respects Gandalf the Wizard who places it in his care. Respect is a central ingredient to Frodo's character. He respects himself, the ring, the natural order of things enough to resist the ring's power and to go off and destroy it. From the very beginning of Btvs - Buffy is asked to respect the nature of her calling and in doing so respect the dangers that she will face. She decides not to date Owen in _Never Kill a Boy on the First Date_ , (Season 1, Btvs) because it becomes clear that Owen does not respect the inherent dangers involved. As she tells Giles - "he wants to be danger man. You, Xander, Willow, you guys... you guys know the score, you're careful. Two days in my world and Owen really *would* get himself killed. Or I'd get him killed. Or someone else." They respect the danger involved or at least they used to, before they saved the world so many times they started to lose count. Now, they are just going through the motions.

And going through the motions can get you killed. Giles has attempted to drill that through their heads. Respect the natural forces. Don't treat these things lightly. You would have thought after five years of fighting the forces of evil they'd have gotten the message. But they haven't as is expressed by Willow's spell to bring Buffy back. Here's what Giles says to Willow after she describes the spell. Willow is looking for congratulations, in her arrogance she has lost respect for the very forces she harnessed.

>   
> GILES: (turns to face her) Do you have any idea what you've done? The forces you've harnessed, the lines you've crossed?  
> WILLOW: I thought you'd be ... impressed, or, or something.  
> GILES: Oh, don't worry, you've ... made a very deep impression. Of everyone here ... you were the one I trusted most to respect the forces of nature. (Flooded, Season 6)  
> 

Willow of all people should know better - in Season 4, Something Blue, she was almost turned into a vengeance demon for a spell she cast to get rid of pain. But the last two years have made her careless, arrogant. She and Tara have been spell-casting back and forth without question. In the Gift - Willow switches the energy between Tara and Glory, pushes aside the demon minions and telepathically communicates with Spike. And in Weight of the World - she enters Buffy's mind to reverse Buffy's catatonic state. Willow has the best of intentions, but haven't we already decided that the way to hell is paved with the best of intentions? Willow has lost her respect for the forces of nature, assuming she ever respected them to begin with, she looks at nature much as a scientist would, something to fiddle around with at will. Tara on the other hand has a deep respect for it.

 _TARA: I can't believe that we are talking about this again. You know how powerful magic is, how dangerous. You could hurt someone, you ... you could hurt yourself._ (Tabula Rasa, Season 6)

Even when Willow gives up magic, it is not out of respect for it. It is like a drug user giving up drugs. She doesn't understand what Giles and Tara are trying to tell her. She sees magic as "just" an addiction. Something she has to get past. Not as something that could destroy the universe. Until she learns to respect it - her magic will control her and not the other way around.

Jonathan like Willow - uses magic to control his world. In _Superstar_ , Season 4, Btvs, Jonathan used magic to manipulate the world to fit what was in his head. In his dream world, he was the slayer, James Bond, and a millionaire tycoon. Everyone jumped when he told them to and lavished their attentions on him. Only one little problem with this world - in order to maintain it, he created a beast, which by the way looks a lot like the beast Willow conjured with her magic in _Wrecked_. A beast that hurt and killed innocent people. Magic, Jonathan learned always has a price. This has not kept Jonathan from trying again, two seasons later we see him creating cerebral dampeners, casting a locator spell, and altering his appearance to fool the slayer. Jonathan apparently hasn't learned a thing. Yet, he does appear to respect magic. He doesn't over-use it and he does get injured. The difference between him and Willow in the long run may be that - respect.

Respect of the natural forces surrounding us is not the only thing we need to respect. We also need to learn how to respect others opinions and views when they differ from our own. Willow clearly wasn't respecting Tara' views. She mind wipes Tara twice to control her thoughts causing Tara to flee the relationship. It's not until Willow gives up magic and starts to respect Tara's opinion again that they get back together. Xander has the same problem with Anya. He does not respect Anya enough to share his fears with her. Nor does he respect her opinion. How many times has he corrected Anya this past year?

>   
> ANYA: What? I'm just saying what everyone's thinking, (to Xander) right baby?  
> XANDER: You are attractive and have many good qualities (Tabula Rasa)  
> 

And in Double Meat Palace, Halfrek, Anya's demon friend, asks:

>   
> HALFREK: Who told you that it isn't easy to love you?  
> ANYA: Well, you know, I'll do something, or say something, and, and then he has to say stuff like, (imitating Xander) 'it's incorrect for you to appreciate money so much,' or, or, 'Observe: here is how a real human would behave.'  
> HALFREK: Oh, so he corrects you?  
> ANYA: Well, no, it's just ... um ... well, no, I mean, now I'm all confused, I mean, wha, do you think there's something wrong with, with the way he treats me?

Xander has never really accepted Anya's ex-demon status. He corrects her, makes smart alec remarks and generally puts her down. Granted Anya does have a tendency to say the wrong thing, but Xander should also be a bit more supportive. Xander's lack of respect for Anya's feelings culminates in _Hells Bells_ when he stands Anya up at their wedding. In _Entropy_ he apologizes for leaving her alone with all of the wedding guests but the apology comes a bit late and he still doesn't respect her enough to let her know why. Of course as many posters on the boards have pointed out - it isn't just Xander's fault. Anya is equally to blame here - she hasn't exactly given him a chance to explain, she hasn't sat down with him and talked it out. Instead she goes around trying to curse him. At this point, I would have to say neither character respects the others' point of view. Nor do they respect the fact that you can't control others thoughts or actions, just your own. Part of growing up is honoring someone else's views and choices even if they conflict with yours. Anya and Xander's train wreck of a relationship is due to a combination of things, principally their lack of respect for themselves and each other.

But it's not just Anya or himself, Xander lost respect for. Xander has also lost respect for the villains they've been fighting since high school. He's forgotten how dangerous Spike can be and continues to egg him on, just because Spike has a chip. Spike has saved Xander's life quite a few times this year (Bargaining, Older and Far Away, and Normal Again) - Xander might want to take a moment to appreciate that or at least think about why. Instead he treats Spike with less respect than he did in Season 4 or even Season 2. He treats him like he treated the teeny tiny Fear demon in _Fear Itself_ , which Giles chided him on because it was tacky. (Season 4, Btvs). He's gotten so used to Spike being on a leash, that he's forgotten what a dangerous creature he really is. Xander might want to take a moment to appreciate the fact that without a chip in his head, Spike would kill him. Spike is dangerous. Riley certainly remembered that - the SG have managed to forget it. I think Buffy's comment to Riley regarding the demon eggs being akin to "tribbles" in _As You Were_ is a perfect example of how much the SG are taking for granted. They don't take the Troika seriously after all they're just high school nerds not dangerous hell gods, right? (Normal Again, Season 6, Btvs.). They didn't take the demon eggs seriously, and they aren't taking Spike seriously. As they sing in _Once More With Feeling_ :

>   
> BUFFY: What can't we face if we're together? What's in this place that we can't weather? Apocalypse? We've all been there. The same old trips. Why should we care?  
> ALL EXCEPT GILES: What can't we do if we get in it? We'll work it through within a minute.  
> 

They certainly didn't take the demon Xander summoned seriously. The demon that made them all sing and dance until they combusted. They barely even chastise Xander for it. Hey, it was just dances and stuff, right? As Xander states: "Well, I didn't know what was gonna happen! I just thought there were gonna be dances and songs. (to Anya) I just wanted to make sure we'd... we'd work out. (nervous smile) Get a happy ending." (OMWF, Season 6 Btvs)

Funny, I guess no one noticed the few people who combusted on the way. The SG didn't take it seriously. No big. Just a demon. We took care of it. They also didn't take a minute to wonder why Xander summoned it? Granted they were a tad distracted by Buffy being in heaven. Besides after fighting Glory and bringing Buffy back from the dead, it's just another night on the hell mouth, heck this stuff happens all the time. As Xander puts it time and again, "yeah demons, don't usually see them, unless you're us."

Andrew, of the Troika, also summons demons. That appears to Andrew's job in the Troika and he clearly doesn't have much respect for the forces of darkness or demons in general. He sees it as play time, a joke. Spending most of his time referencing old movies, reading comics, playing D &D. In this way, he reminds me a lot of Xander. Except of course Xander now has a job and has moved out of the basement. In Doublemeat Palace, when Willow mentions the Star Trek paraphernalia that she and Buffy uncovered in the Troika's lair, Xander gets intrigued just as Andrew gets upset over Spike's threatened abuse of the Boba Fett figure in Smashed. Andrew like Xander is the Troika's Zeppo. Except Xander is brighter and more responsible than Andrew. Andrew is a dumb geek, who will do anything that Warren asks without question. Another similarity to Xander - who will do just about anything Buffy asks. But, there's an important difference, Xander does have scruples and respect for life. He will question Buffy on her actions.

Buffy's lack of self-respect is a big factor this season. Buffy doesn't respect her duty, her friends, herself, or the two people who care about her the most: Spike and Dawn. She can't. She can barely stand to look at herself in the mirror. She is as she sings in OMWF and hums in Gone, just going through the motions.

Buffy's treatment of Spike reminds me of the Michael Douglas/Glenn Close movie Fatal Attraction. In the film, Michael Douglas, a happily married man, pursues a sexual relationship with a high strung and emotionally unstable businesswoman played by Glenn Close. Their sex is violent and visceral and they do it on the elevator, in the kitchen, everywhere but the bed. Glenn Close's character falls hard for Douglas. She craves his visits. Craves his company. When he breaks off their affair and goes back to his wife, things get rather ugly. Close kills his daughter's rabbit, attacks Douglas' wife and finally commits suicide in his bathroom attempting to set him up for the crime. She doesn't want to live if she can't have him. And she wants him to hurt as much as she does. Michael Douglas's character thought he could just have a quickie affair, use her and lose her. But life doesn't work that way. He didn't respect her or himself or his marriage and as a result almost loses everything. Buffy has done the same thing with Spike - she's entered what she considers a purely sexual relationship with an emotionally unstable vampire who can hurt her. Talk about playing with fire. She does not respect what he is or represents. It's not the sex that's the problem here - it never was - it's the lack of respect Buffy has for herself and/or for Spike's feelings. She doesn't even consider his feelings real. In each of their early scenes, he tries, albeit unsuccessfully, to converse with her while she continues to push the physical. He wants to connect. She just wants physical gratification. He might as well be a robot. The only problem is, Spike is not a robot. He has feelings not unlike, ironically enough, the robot April.

Spike and April are quite a bit a like in this context. In I Was Made To Love You (season 5, Btvs), Warren creates a female robot girlfriend to love him, named April. When he dumps her, she blindly pursues him like a puppy dog. Warren doesn't respect April or consider her love for him real. He thinks that he can just turn her off and move on. Just discard her like a toy.

>   
> BUFFY: Did you even tell her? I mean, did you even give her a chance to fix what was wrong?  
> WARREN: I didn't need to fix anything. I mean, her batteries were supposed to run down. Really, they should be completely dead by now.  
> 

But April can't turn off what she feels for him. It's not that easy. When he spurns her - she reacts with rage and tries to kill him until he deflects her rage onto Buffy. She even growls.

>   
> WARREN: No, hey, no. See, I - I know that you love me, but the truth is, I can't love you. (April frowns) I mean, it's not your fault, but... (Cut back to the computer display. ) I don't love you. (IWMTY, Season 5 Btvs)  
> 

Buffy has done exactly the same thing to Spike. In _As You Were_ she practically states the same lines that Warren does, the only difference, she does admit she's been using him and she does blame herself: "I'm using you. I can't love you. I'm just ... being weak, and selfish..." (AYW, Season 6 Btvs) Warren shows no remorse.

Like Warren's April, Spike has become Buffy's own personal windup toy. Dead. Not real. Like a robot. And she appears to respect him as much as one would a robot. In As You Were, she asks him to tell her that he loves her, that he wants her - almost as if she's playing a recording to make herself feel better:

>   
> BUFFY: (quietly) Tell me you love me.  
> SPIKE: (surprised) I love you. You know I do.  
> 

In _Gone_ , she throws him around his crypt, embarrasses him in front of Xander and basically uses him as a sex toy. After she breaks up with him, and he's following her around, she tells him in _Entropy_ , "I don't love you" and when he once again confesses his feelings for her, "The way I feel... about you... It's different. No matter how hard you try to convince yourself it isn't. It's real, " she says: "I think it is. (a beat) For you." (He gives her look as if she's just driven a stake through his heart.) (ENTROPY, Season 6 Btvs).

Has Buffy forgotten what Warren did to April? Maybe Spike doesn't rate that high? No - I think Buffy does remember in both _Dead Things_ , when she replays the scene with Katrina and Warren in her head and in _As You Were_ when she finally breaks things off with him, but as often is the case in Btvs, it's a little late. And in typical Buffy fashion - she thinks, 'okay it's over now, I can just bury it. We can forget it ever happened. We can both move on.' Just like Michael Douglas thought in _Fatal Attraction_ , when he dumps Glenn Close and she wrecks havoc on his life in retaliation. But they've forgotten something - people aren't toys that you can just discard whenever you're done with them. To Buffy's credit - Spike should have respected her decision to call it off. But how many times has she called it off prior to AYW only to return to him again? At least five that we are aware of and at no point did Buffy treat Spike with a modicum of respect. Except possibly when she told him it was over and greeted him at Xander's wedding.

This reminds me of another fatal attraction storyline, a bit more famous than the Michael Douglas film, Emily Bronte's _Wuthering Heights_. In _Wuthering Heights_ \- Heathcliff, a wild child who is continuously treated with disdain, falls deeply in love with the beautiful Kathy. Kathy spurns him to marry a respectable landowner and Heathcliff, in emotional turmoil, goes off to seek revenge. The story ends tragically for them both. Kathy may be able to move on, but Heathcliff, try as he might, cannot.

In Entropy, Buffy tells Spike the same thing that Giles told him in I Was Made To Love You: "Spike, this thing ... get over it."

>   
> SPIKE: (small smile) I don't know what you mean.  
> GILES: Yes, you do. Move the hell on. (I Was Made To Love You, Season 5)  
> 

>   
> BUFFY: You just... have to move on. You have to -" (Entropy, Season 6)  
> 

Has Buffy forgotten what it felt like when Parker dumped her in _Harsh Light of Day_ (Season 4, Btvs) ? In _Beer Bad_ , she daydreams about getting him back, gets wasted, turns into cave girl, and knocks poor Parker out twice with a branch. She even fantasizes about killing him: "If he were tied and gagged and left in a cave that vampires happen to frequent it wouldn't really be like I killed him really." (Beer Bad, Btvs Season 4) What about Willow - when she got dumped, she almost became a vengeance demon in _Something Blue_ : "I just can't stand feeling this way. I want it to be over. (edited for length and emphasis) Well, isn't there someway I can just make it go away? Just 'cause I say so? Can't I just make it go 'poof'?" I agree, why can't we just make this sort of pain go poof? It would make life so much simpler.

When Cordelia dumped him, Xander concocted a dangerous love spell that made every woman go nuts over him because he wanted Cordelia to feel the pain he felt, in _Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered_ (season 2, Btvs): "The point is I want her to want me. Desperately. So I can break up with *her* and subject her to the same hell she's been puttin' *me* through." And here's what Spike says to Anya in _Entropy_ : "I need something. Numbing spell, maybe? (edited for length and emphasis) Got something that'll dull the ache a bit?" Interesting: Willow tries to get rid of her pain by getting drunk first, Buffy tries by getting drunk and Spike tries by getting drunk. What's that saying "love makes you do the wacky?" _Fatal Attraction_ is a long-running theme in BtVs. And now we have the ultimate rejected party - an emotionally unstable vampire who can hurt the Slayer. Did Buffy forget what it felt like to be rejected? Did she forget whom she was dealing with? Did we?

Apparently so, he's been her punching bag for so long now that she sees him as incompetent, therefore incapable of trafficking in demon eggs or really hurting anyone. Not because he loves her - because he's incompetent. She not only lost respect for his feelings, she's lost respect for him as her nemesis. It's not until two episodes before As You Were, Dead Things, that Buffy even realizes what she's doing with Spike - using him. But she hangs on to the relationship until Riley confronts her with what Spike is, "amoral, opportunistic and deadly." I found this relationship as difficult to watch as Fatal Attraction or Wuthering Heights - for the same reasons, I was routing for the wrong person. In Fatal Attraction - my sympathy lay with Glenn Close, in Wuthering Heights - with Heathcliff and now, oddly enough, with Spike. Why? RESPECT. Buffy does not respect Spike. Okay -I know there are a few of you out there who don't see a reason why she should, after all he is a soulless vampire, and as such not really deserving of it, but I'm not talking about "respect in the sense of finding him honorable or worthy of respect" - I'm talking about "respecting the fact that this person could become dangerous if crossed" that this person has "feelings" which can be hurt and can cause him to hurt back. Just like April the robot when Warren rejected her. Warren didn't respect April's feelings any more than Buffy respects Spike. Warren also didn't see any reason to respect April, he didn't appreciate how dangerous April could be when thwarted. Spike is also dangerous. Riley makes that clear in As You Were - "Amoral, Opportunistic, and Deadly or have you forgotten?" Apparently she's forgotten the "deadly" part of the formula. The writers are making an interesting point - you should not treat anyone the way Buffy has treated Spike without expecting to get kicked. And she is about to. Three times three - remember? I'm not saying she deserves it, I'm saying that you tend to reap what you sow in this life and the amount of respect you give out is the amount you can expect in return. In Spike's defense - he does love Buffy, but he is also a vampire, a soulless vampire, who as the season has progressed, has received less and less respect from the object of his affections. She keeps telling him that he's evil, untrustworthy, amoral, and not real. As he states to Anya - "I was always going above and beyond. I saved the Scoobies how many times? And I can't stand the lot of you.." (Entropy, Btvs Season 6.) From Spike's point of view, it clearly doesn't matter to Buffy whether he's good or he's bad, she'll treat him the same. And that must sting - because he did it all for her. She will never respect him because he is a monster. (Odd, last year she had begun to, enough to actually treat him like a man and trust him to take care of her sister. Now - since she had the fling with him - her respect for him as a person has gone out the window.)

Buffy also hasn't shown a great deal of respect for her friends. She doesn't respect them enough to tell them that they tore her from heaven or to tell them about her relationship with Spike. Instead she buries everything, just like she always has, and as Xander puts it in Dead Man's Party (Season 3 Btvs):"You can't just bury stuff, Buffy. It'll come right back up to get you." Which it's doing right now, coming right out of the ground and biting her, maybe not literally like it did in Dead Man's Party but it is doing it. Xander might have been able to deal with her relationship with Spike, if she'd chosen to tell him before the wedding disaster. Letting Spike be the one to do it - and yes she did let him, was probably the worst possible thing she could have done to Xander. To Buffy's credit she didn't tell them for the same reason Xander didn't reveal his relationship with Cordy - lack of respect for the relationship, the other person, and themselves.

The writers have paralleled Warren with Buffy a great deal this season. And Buffy barely takes him seriously, certainly not as seriously as she took Glory. Why would she? Glory is a hell god. Warren is a nerd, ineffectual. She knows he's a murderer. But Buffy and the SG have fought worse. Warren on the other hand takes Buffy very seriously, to the extent that he has her and her friends on constant around the clock video surveillance. Throughout the season we have watched Buffy struggling to do things the hard way, while Warren takes short-cuts. Occasionally their actions mirror each other. In Gone - Warren wants to use the invisibility ray to spy on the girls at the spa, maybe even play with them a bit. When Buffy is accidentally hit with it, she goes and plays sex games with Spike. Warren's actions were clearly worse - since the girls are unwilling participants and he intended to use the ray to spy on them. Buffy is just making the best of her situation and Spike is willing enough. But not that willing, since he eventually kicks her out. Her actions, Spike notes, show a lack of respect for him, herself and life in general. She also uses her invisibility to torment Doris the social worker, causing the woman to possibly lose her job. Instead of taking charge of the situation, she uses it to take reckless short-cuts, not unlike Warren. Next we have Dead Things - and again the writers flip us back and forth between Warren and Buffy. Warren makes Katrina his sex slave while Buffy is struggling with her cravings for Spike. Warren doesn't respect Katrina at all - she's just an object to him. Buffy sees Spike as an evil soulless thing. Yet, unlike Warren, she is beginning to see Spike as more than an object - hence the guilt. Spike is also a willing participant in Buffy's game. But the biggest difference between Warren and Buffy is Buffy can feel guilt. Warren apparently can't. He kills Katrina and treats her like she's just a body to be disposed of, Buffy on the other hand rails at Spike for disposing of the body and insists on turning herself in. Buffy, unlike Warren, still has respect for life.

The word "Respect" has a broad rang of meanings and uses in our language. I found at least seven in the dictionary. Respecting authority or honoring someone with respect - is one and the theme discussed in Season 3 Btvs. In Season 6 - the "respect" theme is far more complex. Respecting the forces of nature, respecting things we can't change, respecting ourselves, respecting others…if you look back through the episodes, it becomes clear that the SG's loss of respect for the evil they've always fought, the allies who've fought beside them, and life in general has trapped them in a nightmare of their own making.

Part of growing up is learning how to respect views different from your own. Learning to respect our world and ourselves. Will our three Scoobies, Xander, Buffy, and Willow learn this lesson in time to avoid more pain? Or will they continue to live out their own nightmares as depicted in Restless: Xander's losing his heart at the bottom of the basement stairs due to his lack of respect for his parents, himself, Anya, Willow chocking on her spirit/magic due to her lack of respect for life, nature, and power, and Buffy attempting to ignore the first slayer who appears to be raping her with a knife on her living room floor - due to her lack of respect for Spike/the Slayer, her shadow self? Or will their nightmares just get worse? Will they relive the dreams of Fear Itself - where Willow loses control of her magic, Xander loses his identity - so no one sees him, and Buffy is abandoned by all her friends? Is respect the key?


End file.
